Subject: Uars FYI

From: [email-masked] (David Winningham)
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 91 10:09:12 CDT

Brian Dunbar
Headquarters, Washington, D.C.                            September 26, 1991
(Phone:  202/453-1547)

Jessie Katz
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt. Md.
(Phone:  301/286-5566)

RELEASE:  91-155

NEW RESEARCH SATELLITE PROVIDES GLOBAL OZONE MAPING DATA

	Preliminary data from NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite 
(UARS) are providing scientists with a three-dimensional, global map of 
ozone in the upper atmosphere and a global view of chlorine monoxide, a 
key chemical in ozone depletion.  The results appear to confirm existing 
aircraft and ground-based research about the chemical processes that lead 
to ozone depletion.

	These first data were obtained from UARS' Microwave Limb Sounder, 
one of 10 instruments aboard the new research satellite deployed by Space 
Shuttle Discovery on Sept. 15.  The satellite's orbit, 363 miles above the 
Earth at a 57-degree inclination to Earth's Equator, provides greatly 
extended geographic ozone coverage.  UARS' side-mounted instruments 
provide a three-dimensional view of the developing ozone "hole" over 
Antarctica.

	As the first major element of NASA's new Mission to Planet Earth 
program, UARS has begun the global-scale study of the Earth as a complete 
environmental system.  UARS will provide scientists with the first 
comprehensive data set on the chemistry, wind directions and energetics 
of Earth's upper atmosphere.  

	UARS's main focuses are the processes involved in ozone depletion.  
Ozone, a molecule made up of three atoms of oxygen, blocks the Sun's 
ultraviolet radiation that poses a health risk to humans and endangers food 
crops.

	Previous studies using aircraft and ground-based instruments have 
indicated that reactive chlorine atoms, freed from chemicals such as 
chlorofluorocarbons, destroy ozone in the upper atmosphere or 
stratosphere.  Chlorine atoms capture oxygen atoms from ozone, creating a 
molecule of chlorine monoxide and a molecule of oxygen, which does not 
block ultraviolet light.  The chlorine monoxide atom then is broken up, 
freeing the chlorine atom.  Repetition of the cycle leads to the destruction 
of thousands of ozone molecules by a single chlorine atom.

	The Microwave Limb Sounder instrument aboard UARS continuously 
measures ozone, chlorine monoxide, temperature and water vapor.  It is a 
collaborative effort with the United Kingdom.  Dr. Joe Waters of NASA's Jet 
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and Dr. Gordon Peckham of Herrot 
Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, are the instrument's principal 
investigators.

	UARS is still undergoing testing and is scheduled to begin full 
science operations in mid-October.  Eight other instruments have been 
activated and spacecraft controllers report verification and testing have 
been successful.

	UARS is managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, 
Md., for NASA Headquarters Office of Space Science and Applications, 
Washington, D.C.

----- End Included Message -----